Special Missions
Special missions are missions sent abroad to conduct diplomacy with a limited purpose and usually for a limited time. Led by special envoys, their employment was the normal manner of conducting foreign relations until resident diplomacy began to take root
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Special missions are missions sent abroad to conduct diplomacy with a limited purpose and usually for a limited time. Led by special envoys, their employment was the normal manner of conducting foreign relations until resident diplomacy began to take root during the late fifteenth century. Advances in air travel led to their resurgence in the anxious days preceding and following the outbreak of World War II, and, since then, it has been unstoppable. Special missions are a feature of normal diplomatic relationships, but they are particularly valuable to the diplomacy between hostile states, not least in breaking the ice between them – as when American National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger flew secretly to Beijing, capital of the PRC, in July 1971. What are the advantages of special missions used in the absence of diplomatic relations? How are they variously composed? When should they be sent in public, and when in secret?
The advantages of special missions Special missions may be designed to supplement activity by disguised embassies or play a larger role in their absence. They also come in many guises themselves, but most provide maximum security for the secrecy of a message, which, in the circumstances, might be of considerable sensitivity. In this respect their function is identical to that of a diplomatic courier, but their higher status underlines the importance attached to the message by the sending state, and this – together with the special knowledge of the mission’s members – makes it more likely that it will command respect.
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G. R. Berridge, Diplomacy © G. R. Berridge 2015
242 Diplomacy
The procedures of special missions, and the privileges and immunities of their members, were clarified and marginally reinforced in the second half of the twentieth century by what is commonly known as the ‘New York Convention’ (Box 16.1). This alarmed many states because customary international law had ‘essentially’ restricted the privileges and immunities of special missions ‘to immunity from criminal jurisdiction and inviolability of the person’ (Wood 2012); that is, it had not treated them as generously as resident embassies. The New York Convention was, accordingly, seen as a Third World instrument and, even today, has been ratified by only 38 states – not including the United States. Nevertheless, even as between the states that are parties to it, it permits flexibility in the use of special missions. As for the rest, as Sir Michael Wood observes, ‘in most circumstances’ the rules on special missions and other official visitors continue to be found in customary international law (Wood 2012). The customary law also has the advantage of extending the class of those entitled to immunity beyond the narrow formula of the New York Convention; namely, to specialized permanent missions sent by one state to another, such as aid or military missions, and special missions to and from an authority not constituting a state. Box 16.1
The New York Convention on Special Missions (1969)
The Convention on Special Mission
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